The present invention relates to an elevator system with a safety installation.
There have been disclosed various elevator systems each equipped with a safety installation for preventing any member such as clothes from being drawn into a small gap defined between a slide door and a fixed wall adjacent to the door when the door opens a doorway into or out of an elevator cage. Among others, the Japanese Patent Publication No. 63-66084 (A) discloses such safety system, in which a vertical recess is formed at a vertically extending corner edge between one vertical wall defining the doorway and the other vertical wall adjacent to the opening/closing door. A pair of light emitter and receiver are provided at top and bottom portions of the vertical recess in order to detect any member such as clothes positioned near the gap between the opening/closing door and the adjacent fixed wall and, if detected, prohibit the opening operation of the door.
Also, the Japanese Patent Publication No. 11-310375 (A) discloses another safety installation, which includes a pair of light emitter and receiver positioned on a vertical line within a small gap or space define between the opening/closing door and the adjacent fixed wall for the detection of any member which has been drawn into the space.
The safety installations, however, have respective drawbacks. For example, according to the former safety installation, dust or foreign matters are retained at the bottom of the vertical recess, which results in a false detection of the member. On the other hand, the latter safety installation is capable of detecting any member already existing in the gap, but it is incapable of detecting any member which may be drawn into the gap.
Accordingly, an elevator system of the present invention has a pair of horizontally opposed vertical surfaces defining therebetween a doorway or opening to an elevator cage and a door moving horizontally to open and close the opening. In particular, the system has a first optical device having a light emitter for emitting light and a second optical device having a light receiver for receiving the light emitted from the light emitter. The first and second optical devices are positioned in a vertical plane crossing the opening and adjacent to the opening. Also, one of the first and second optical devices is positioned below the other of the first and second optical devices and mounted in the vertical surface.